Rusty Equipement

[johnnymoff]

Hi,

Looking at some of the pots, ladles, and moulds on ebay, the cast iron stuff is all rusted. If I buy something used and rusty, what do I clean it with?

Would cast aluminum be better than cast iron to use and keep clean?

Thanks,
-John

[samari46]

When needed and when the pot is empty I scrape all the loose stuff from the sides and bottom and use a wire wheel to get the walls clean, then a cup type wire wheel for the bottom. Do this outside as the crud turns into a fine powder and probably isn't good for you to breathe. And as to the cast iron versus cast aluminum thing, always cast iron. The cast aluminum is definitely unsafe at some of the higher temps we use when casting. I use a cast iron dutch oven when smelting wheel weights. Frank

[Czech_too]

In moulds, aluminum is fine. You don't want to use it though as a material in a smelting/casting pot or as a ladle.
Cast iron you can clean w/a wire brush or wheel, or coarse steel wool depending on how badly it's rusted.
Iron moulds can possibly be cleaned up, again depending how bad they are, using evaporust, or something similar.

[William Yanda]

The problem with Al as pot for melting lead is that though it doesn't melt, it gets weaker, something you do not want to discover with x lbs. of molten lead.

[ascast]

with wire wheel, add some water to keep the dust down. also maybe take to a sandblast shop if real bad

[Iowa Fox]

Kroil & Strongarm are pretty much all I use for rust anymore. My youngest son uses electrolysis with good luck but then again he's an engineer and they like messing around with that kind of stuff.

[carbine]

Friend was smelting with alum pot with 130 lbs of lead in it when the bottom cracked.

[244]

You can use a lye bath to remove the built up crust and then rinse/scrape/brush and follow with an acid bath to eat the rust. Be sure to use safety equipment! Electrolysis is super easy and will get the accumulated crud to flake off and the rust to convert. http://www.rickswoodshopcreations.com/miscellaneous/rust_removal.htm

(http://www.rickswoodshopcreations.com/miscellaneous/rust_removal.htm)

[nun2kute]

I would suggest Google, How to remove rust from tools. This is what I did after I got my table saw and jointer out of storage. Haven't tried it yet, but I plan on using the Natural method using salt and lemon juice.